week's top stories from mark c. palestine moves up to the international arena becoming a good weather recognized observer state which could allow it to pursue israel now with claims of war cry of. egypt's power struggle spirals rival forces gather strength in a showdown over the draft constitution and the president's self-imposed supreme authority. plus watch this space there are more wiki leaks on the way during the sounds promises more ground shaking revelations next year she talks to us at our team. midnight here in moscow thanks for being with us for

a viewer watching around the world my name is kevin irwin and the big story last week the palestinians moved a step closer to being fully recognized as independent of the u.n. voted to upgrade the administration's diplomatic status to a nonmember observer state a middle east correspondent paul asli reports no one how the move may signal a change in the way the world sees israeli actions from now on. it might should be no foregone conclusion but that didn't dampen the jubilation on the streets of palestine. overwhelming support for upgraded palestinian state has to a nonmember observer state in the un one hundred fifty eight voting in favor nine against look at me forty one abstentions it's sort of political and legal victory to hold israel accountable in a practical way on its violations the national law and its violations of the rights of the palestinian people especially on. the expansion of illegal surveillance

palestinians can now apply to join the international criminal court and other global organizations giving them better bargaining chips in dealing with israel but it came at a price within hours tel aviv announced to peace building three thousand more homes in the west bank a sure sign that the situation on the ground won't change overnight. it's not a step forward it's a step aside or even you know a step. back that's really the international community gives hand to this violation the u.s. was also quick to cost account of the palestinian party mood the unfortunate and counterproductive resolution at the united nations general assembly that just passed today's grand pronouncements will soon fade and the palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed but washington's unflinching support for tel aviv has separated from some of its a

longtime allies in the un more and more countries are turning their back on decades of negotiations that have led nowhere what has changed has been the continual failure of the us controlled so-called peace process to lead to any kind of end to occupation and what i think was the catalyst here is that political pressure on them as an on the palestinian authority from their own population from their own people who were saying you know what we've had twenty one years of failed diplomacy we're not looking for twenty two we want something different and that's something means a real shift in policy first and foremost the consensus on the international stage is that israel needs to stop building settlements deemed illegal by the un certain to be international community you know is the horrors this is why it was a provocation which. heroes of course. saw god. it was

a little more than a year ago that palestinian president mahmoud abbas came to the un in a bid for statehood since then tel aviv and washington's approach to the middle east conflict has gained them an ever shrinking minority of supporters the irony is that the bid was passed on the watchers of israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and his rightwing foreign minister avigdor lieberman it was last year that lieberman boasted in the united nations that the moral majority of western states was with israel it now turns out he was wrong and whether israel wants it or not it's increasingly clear that something needs to give policy r.t. tel aviv. but saving israeli college lecturer mary i said told me that thursday's you were move was directed against israel. the majority of israelis including this government by the way have stated clearly that they'd like to see palestine independent both of us understand that there's

a difference between saying palestine independent and doing it on your own with the united nations without israel as a partner as if saying that the impediment is just the state that's here let's do this hand in hand without negotiations without us as a partner to do a one sided to impose it on israel and they feel the strong need to give a response as an israeli i can say that has to do with domestic politics personally i don't necessarily adhere to that stop i think you've heard a lot of criticism here in israel in linking it in such a way that is also about politics but of course israel maybe not helping the matter could be said on top of the and i was one of the settlements also announced is not going to hold over a hundred million dollars of aid to the palestinians to pay back debts to israeli companies is really an option when of course you go the world's largest refugee populations on your doorstep well that refugee population is something that needs to be taken care of in any case but i'm looking at these as part of the last four

years the decision that was made on thursday from my point of view as an israeli who was anti israel not just pro palestinian i want to see something which is a win win situation one that's both pro palestinian that goes towards an end and an state not just in rhetoric and not just regulations but in actuality and to do so those same palestinians can house to come not to the negotiation table for the last four years they have refused to do so they've refused time and again and we're all aware of that it was one of the main reasons that the forty states who did abstain from the vote on thursday did so because of that rejection of israel it isn't just about being pro palestine it's also about accepting israel here and that's where we need to go. egyptians supposed to decide who comes to to choose. weeks' time but if last week was an intern to go by it will be easy there was widespread anger as the president grant himself sweeping new powers while supreme court judges couldn't

rule on the legitimacy of the draft charter there are supporters of mossi stop them getting into the chamber the courts now suspended his work indefinitely in protest buttons in cairo. good unrest returns to the streets after the revolution that toppled hosni mubarak after the election that brought in mohamed morsi egypt is in turmoil once again these round the clock protests have been going on for over a week now it resembles early two thousand and eleven when hosni mubarak was removed from power but that was nearly two years ago shouldn't the revolution have amended by now the mood on top risk where became defiant again after last week's to creep president morsi meaning his decisions would face new legal challenge we had the revolution to get rid of a tyrant the dictator. in in order to do that we have made elections and with a revolution and with elections to choose someone to the present us and turned out

that this guy is also a tyrant himself however morsi claims his new powers are only temporary he nor any of the b.b.q. in the world who closely near you will tell you it is a temporary thing it is full immersion see it told us the serious the same thing sixty years of war and the president obama and we stayed under emergency law for seventy years opponents say egypt's new constitution is too islamist and could set the country on the road to religious dictatorship but some sections of society are keen to show their support for morsi and their scorn for judges who would block the constitution and i'm here to support the president morsi films all pushing but if you for them is open for them to the constitutional court. most of us knows that since it is the morsi is that they got elected by the people when it was. the fight for the failure of the rifts in society are undeniable and perhaps more even the north or a tarion ism is fair is that chaos will tear apart any gains made by the revolution

this is something new in egypt that's why it's it's more city thing in a way where you find that people are facing each other in the streets in the ministrations and facing that type of violence from islamic groups egypt's president its government its courts its very constitution are now matters of heated debate one of the few things most egyptians do seem to agree on after the long night of mubarak a new day is proving it. tom bottom party. president morsi claims his almost absolute power is temporary but some observers a warning that egyptians can expect further oppression from the post mubarak regime now. the fact of the matter is that everything is going in the opposite direction of what the revolution is called for the constituent assembly itself is a reflection of how unwilling to share power the muslim brotherhood are and along with mohamed morsi. he says that he will give back powers as soon as

a parliament is a is elected but he's not allowing the gyptian to share in writing the constitution so this to me seems like a false promise about giving back power because the one thing he can do is allow dictions to write their own constitution and share power and he's not doing that the judiciary has been a tool for the mubarak regime but if we come to think of it when people protested barak they were protesting police brutality and we see that morsi is giving promises to the police that they will act with impunity and does not want to bring anyone to justice for the crimes they've done. during the sun is promising some shocking revelations to rival the hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic cables published by wiki leaks two years ago in an interview with us the editor of the whistle blowing web site also claims the u.s. is becoming a totalitarian state with the help of social media. the problem is that all the time everyone nearly everything they do is permanently recorded every web

search to know what you were thinking one year two days three months ago and you don't know google knows it remembers the national security agency intercepts the request of a u.s. border. national security agency whistleblower who was researching head of the national security agency's signals intelligence division describes this as turnkey totalitarianism that all the infrastructure has been built for absolute totalitarianism it's just a matter of turning the key and actually the case has already been turned a little bit and it's now affecting people who are targeted for you. drone strikes organizations work when he reads. national security reporters who are having a source is investigated he's already partly turned. his group will go all the way . and you can watch the full

interview with julian assange at r.t. dot com if you're not quoted already i can tell you it's also coming up as well here on our t.v. in half an hour from now. us army private bradley manning the man charged with hunting over classified u.s. documents to wiki leaks spoke out for the first time in over two years saying he considered suicide while in detention during his pretrial hearing the twenty four year old said his detention conditions triggered anxiety attacks and made him want to hang himself manning's been locked up for more than nine hundred days now the longest pretrial detention of a u.s. soldier since the vietnam war as a lawyer and author of a book on manning he says the imprisoned private provokes a mixed reaction from the military. oh denuded the military and intelligence and law enforcement is quite divided about this i am not going to lie most people in the military have a very strict by the book attitude towards many of the rules not all the rules but many and would like to see many convicted but i have talked with infantry one of

whom who is caught on camera at that infamous collateral murder helicopter video who sees bradley manning is a hero who sees the leaks of the iraq war logs including that helicopter video as an unqualified good because now americans can finally see how that war is actually going in ditto for the afghan war logs there are also people in the f.b.i. who think such a thing is we can weeks which is very good for national security including the former director of the minneapolis office of the f.b.i. believe roundly who is a time magazine's person of the year in two thousand and two and i have a long interview in my book with the former top cia analyst and ray mcgovern who also sees this public knowledge of this benefit to the public debate about our wars should be in measurable good so there is disagreement that the military and intelligence communities about this coming up election turnouts tumbled in kuwait

it seems the opposition point holds title fair to feel when it's who tell you why changing the rules as enrage the focus. you just saw from enough knows that to ride a horse you've got to catch it first. frame it's an daily routine that you saw. because of course on the island of horn at the heart of. his life on an isolated farm is about blue sky green grass and his horses weren't there sometimes he gets lonely here but horses have become a part of me now i've fallen off so many times sometimes the. it's part of my

everyday life. been home to a rats just laugh for centuries most still live off the land but you can't and fish . by coal is often called the pearl of siberia i know corn is said to be the pearl of by. it's a land of think forests. and vast staps. virtually undiscovered by tourists until some twenty years ago i was cornish quickly becoming a magnet for nature lovers and if you will say cars you're quite some way from civilization here accommodation on the island is very basic so you can forget about a t.v. or even run in water for most people a tent is there on the eruption but for those who come here it's exactly what

they're looking for. in journey to buy coal can be a trip of a lifetime and the locals say once you've seen it they'll be coming back again and again. into the future science technology innovation all these developments around russia we've got the future covered.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. again in kuwait pro-government candidates a woman lined share seats in parliament talk to some today's election but the as misled opposition which boycotted the vote claim the turnout was as low as twenty six percent this missing therefore the lawmaking body is illegitimate the opposition's vowed to protest until the u.s. backed monarchy dissolved parliament. reports from the gulf state. the gloating in kuwait's highly controversial elections may be over but the battle over the

country's political future has only just begun lots of new faces in the newly elected parliament which is deemed to be far more government friendly than the previous assembly but that is because the opposition didn't find any candidates you know boycott of the vote that protest was deemed to be a success with official estimates of placing voter turnout at roughly thirty nine percent in stark contrast to the sixty percent voter turnout that we've seen in the last three elections in this country the opposition claims the turnout was in fact much lower and in its eyes the new body is illegitimate in fact they told the new assembly on constitutional and according to the popular committee of four boycotting election votes the new body doesn't represent the majority of the great people and has lost the popular and political legitimacy the question is of course whether the opposition is now going to take its battle to the streets and whether the monarchy will respond with a heavy hand now what happens here in kuwait has implications far beyond the

country's borders as an opec member any sort of on a rest is bound to have an effect on world oil prices the country also serves as a hub for the pentagon's ground forces with thousands of american combat troops stationed here as a military council wait to iran now the gulf monarchies as a whole have been struggling to stave off the effects of the arab spring with varying degrees of success kuwait is largely seen as the most tolerant of the countries but the worry here is that the trend could be reversed over the past few months the country has seen increasingly violent escalating protests between the opposition and security forces with the latter using tear gas stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse crowds political parties are banned as are political gatherings of more than twenty people and activists are claiming of a clamp down against dissent here in the scan tree authorities did allow thousands of the opposition demonstrators to gather in a largely peaceful rally on. friday of course the coming weeks are bound to test the limits of the government's tolerance as well as the self control of the

opposition what happens here in kuwait could very well write the next chapter of the arab spring you see catherine of r t the date when you can be sure will be following events closely now so analysts say kuwait's regime will have staying power as long as it enjoys the support that comes of being a key u.s. ally the most important element in all of this is whether or not the opposition is able to stand up against this family the ruling class the ruling class in kuwait and most importantly standing against u.s. imperialism kuwait in and of itself is not terribly important but when seen in the context of the g.c.c. and seen as one of the most reliable u.s. allies particularly juxtaposed against what is happening in bahrain and we understand that the united states and the western powers cannot allow the saw family to fall you have to see that kuwait is a launching point in a possible war against iran so all of these taken together really shows that the united states has both political geo political and then of course social reasons

why they want to maintain the status quo. explosions in syria's western city of homes many times killed at least fifteen and left more than thirty injured the blast sat near a mosque in a stadium witnesses say there were two separate car bomb attacks it's fear the number of dead could rise though with many of the wounded in a critical condition tonight it comes amid reports that syrian warplanes have hit rebel targets in the suburbs of damascus where fighting between militias and regime troops has been raging for a month and that says western support for the rebels continued with from salivating one and a half million dollars in aid to the new syrian opposition washington is now leading efforts to to make the new group a government in exile to serve as a counterweight to the assad regime and russia fired back saying it's unacceptable to throw support behind a coalition that stands against the officially recognized government professor paul shelton foote from california state university told this says only pursuing short term financial goals as he sees it. science major interest would be going to new

routes lawrence of armaments that were all the really but i don't think it really cured service just as though it didn't cure and it goes live your they were closed tomorrow i was going to operate they didn't really cure who took over after words the. problem with kronk syrian opposition leaders that they are not united the only thing unites them they would like to remove the current government can prove a very wide range of. religious viewpoints and ethnic viewpoint of the thick origins. never worked a few students your they were not be able to come together and they would be in no round of fighting to determine who. dominate all the other groups well france is not the only country willing to pump aid into the middle east region the us is no system libya to us the country attempts to reestablish its military after last

year's civil war but that is gone and she can reports washington's offer of help may not be an entirely selfless act. the pentagon's new outlook forget about full scale invasion is and large footprint occupation instead think of special ops and proxy armies next destination libya the obama administration has received congressional approval to allocate money for a special unit reportedly made up of some five hundred people who will train the country's forces according to one libyan militia commander a team of americans is already in the country looking for recruits a major obstacle in their way a vastly divided society there isn't an army and libya now and the army is not going to be because whenever you try and get militias which have been region says to a variety of rays of things than the national interest so they have allegiance to a drive or to a sect or to a religion rather than having allegiance to the nation or to the country you cannot

build an army but with training and aid fully via the u.s. we have more pragmatic goals then uniting the army you were just teaching them the best way to fight this war training is interesting because the two really about not so much about you know teaching people how to use rifles and how to use new equipment it's all about really more about indoctrination make any age one of the children u.s. music and as you know very successfully up to ensure that elite in the countries concerned stay loyal to the u.s. . a lot in terms of foreign policy the state law to them in terms of opening their economies up. to u.s. multinationals who will be a movie a very important. for the united states and yes it will start buying american arms and substantial qualities libya's lots and lots of money to spend according to the state department this year alone the u.s.

spent six point three billion dollars financing foreign armies it argues investing in foreign militaries helps build. better all line says and further american interests abroad from the point of view of the u.s. government of course it's very useful to have other countries militaries integrated into the us they get the training then they get the equipment they get the arms it's the full package the idea of proxy armies is not new to be very destructive record of training foreign armies has hardly been flawless you have the school of americas for instance which is trained all the the armies that became the torturers of latin america that started after world war two i would say the training troops is especially in the middle east in the case of iraq or in afghanistan something of a catastrophe it's premised on a fantasy that if the u.s. buys the uniforms gives them the guns provides in the training that somehow these will be reliable forces you can see in the case of afghanistan the governments are united the governments are partners but the afghan troops don't consider the americans to be their friends in fact they consider them to be cultural aliens who

are occupying their country more than fifty coalition troops were killed this year alone by members of the afghan security forces or it is out that the obama administration wants to leave around ten thousand troops in afghanistan to continue to train afghan forces and carry out special operations after twenty fourteen when according to the obama administration american forces are supposed to have completely left the country the afghan government has less than two years to agree or reject the idea the u.s. government may be looking at training armies abroad is a smart investment sort of like outsourcing makes sense in business it's cheaper than having u.s. troops on the ground no need to explain dead troops coming home makes sense from a lot of perspectives but that strategy has backfired more than once in the past eliminating populations that didn't want to see their military become a student of washington's wars in washington i'm gonna check out. much more news

ahead of the given in this hour including the title of the prime minister the press and a public baying for blood has that done. ethics inquiry says britain's free media needs to be reined in with regulation big news in that we go more on it and silicon valley's testing out the talent to the break we explain why there's no no place for those who helped america's digital innovation. wedge issues do just what their name implies they get between people and drive them apart like a wage and these issues seem to always take the forefront in the media things like abortion gun rights marijuana legalization and the weather well the weather isn't really a west cost people sure talk about it way too much there's only so much room in the national discourse and the switch issues just eat up all of the time and attention

but the thing is that there's a little something called the tenth amendment you know the one that says that any powers that are specifically delegated the federal government are reserved for the states and last time i checked the constitution doesn't have a special weed clause saying that marijuana has to be an all or nothing a national proposal and that goes for abortion and most of the wedge issues also there's a simple answer all these wedge issues just left the states make up their own minds but then again without wedge issues what would the mainstream media have to distract us with but that's just my opinion. culture is that so much about the taxpayers' money minting ization is a lot of people at hearing within every third world media is fond of the dramatic term water wars when it comes to describing the future management of global water resources. the gold fever.

turns thousands into slaves. my father but also among brother involved in the mines and since i started working in a mine i stated i look at it. this multinationals. make it a cash cow to be milked dry and if i think that in this country gold medal logie has an environmental cost which is unacceptable to local business was labeled illegal and controlled by criminals you know in order to protect our lives our families and to work in peace. most dog owners that we are forced to pay protection to illegal groups watch for prices colombia going to pay. for the for the modest effect on r.t. . wealthy british style. that's not on.